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March 19, 2005

Seattle’s Pallavan

It was like 12B. The crowd, the rush, the push and the seat blocking. Just as same as the Vadapalani-T.Nagar crowd. Travelling from a suburb to the downtown Seattle is becoming an event everyday. With a metro bus full of Indians, it gives me a feel of being in Chennai, except that not many talk Tamil.

The one sitting next to you can say, Kya Yaar/Bagunaara/Inna Mamey, anything of the listed/unlisted Indian language. Sometimes you might have an america-born-asian youth constantly fidling with the tiny electronic gadget which could be the size of a matchbox and might play mp3, kick off the electric heater in your house or sometimes remotely run a few unix shell scripts to index the cramped database at work. Who knows ? Everything is possible with technology, especially here.

You can blabber about deal going with Comcast cable or ask for the best Indian restaurant around with your Indian bus friends. All these details are available after ‘deep’ research of prices and quality. From buying selling cars to broomsticks every single product is analyzed thoroughly. So you can be sure that any advice you get from a desi with regards to price/place/product is a reasonable one. But chances are you might end up sitting with a snob whose face would read a name like Munsaamy or Goindsamy. He would just not even smile at you and would behave like descending directly from St.Peter’s special heaven. As you sit next to him, he would take out his ancient cellphone and talk stuff like gonna, awesome, whasup, gotta go, shoot and what not. The worst part is that you might meet our heaven descendent at an Indian store arguing in local tamil or telugu, bargaining for $2.75 frozen paratha. Fate.

The best thing about Seattle is the commute. The city is well connected with the bus service. For someone like me to have seen nothing but cars in Chicago, this was a surprise. The roads are built on hilly areas which means you will have a roller-coaster ride to the city and with those tall green trees half-covered with the morning fog, it’s a pleasure ride. As the bus crosses the Lake Washington, you find a maze of bridges built below and above to the one you travel. Yeah, you can slip into a dream of singing like Shahrukh on the open car[Pardes].

I am carrying my SONY Digicam with me mostly but with the pace of bus zooming on the express lane, all I could get is a shot of moving objects and not the lake. Will have to get down and click them someday.
March 18, 2005

Gossips Galore

Anniyan gets pushed to May 15th, for Chandramukhi. Hope they come on the same day. Not for the wait but just curious about the results.

Mumbai Xpress also gets post-poned. Not because of Chandramukhi but due to post production jobs.

Prakash Raj’s ropes Priya, an assistant of Mani Ratnam for his next production. Thats news. Gossip is that KB also directs a film named Poi, for Prakash Raj’s production house. Is that a Poi/lie ?

Mani Ratnam kicks off story discussion for his next film starting April 2005 with all new stars. A friend close to Madras Talkies mailed.

Chandramukhi Countdown – 27 more days to Devuda Devuda.
March 17, 2005

Vasanth’s 9:30 to 10

[Pic – Hindu]

This was something that I was looking for a long long long time. Vasanth‘s break from Kollywood seemed like a mystery to me. Though he was associated with many charity programs and was also directing Ashokamitran‘s Thaneer, he was out of the mainstream kollywood for sometime now.

After Keladi Kanmani and Nee Paathi Naan Paathi[remember gowthami’s Nivedha song], like Mani Ratnam, Vasanth was also one of my favorites. Not just because he was from the KB group but because he had an elegant down-to-earth approach in telling stories. Aasai which was an offbeat thriller was cute. Not only Vasanth gave a fresh life to Ajith’s dying cinema career but also established Prakash Raj after his first tamil film Duet.

Nerukku Naer seemed more of a Agni Nakshathiram rehash but still was a good college movie. And I saw it couple of times for that Engenge Engenge song where Surya was still running behind Simran in the streets of Kolkatta. Povellam Kettu Paar was more of a Crazy Mohan movie than Vasanth’s. I still feel Vasanth has the ability to ground his movies well and there is a good amount of urban middle-class crowd that will enjoy his movies.

Looks like his next flick with Surya, 9:30 to 10:00 talks about the changes in two peoples life in just 30 minutes. 9:30 to 10, sounded like a serial timing on the cable. Thats when you get to Chithi/ Annamalai or Selvi. I think it’s not about it. Vasanth’s comeback sounds exciting to me. But don’t tell me he will rope Deva as the music director, again. Let’s have Illayaraja or ARR.
March 17, 2005

Yahoo 360 Blogging Service

So that completes the circle. Google – MSN and now Yahoo. Yahoo 360, a service that looks like a mix of Blogger and Orkut. I should say it more like the MSN Spaces rather than the Blogger + Orkut stuff.

The service isn’t active yet but looks like Beta service will be launched very soon. I haven’t seen many interesting blogs on MSN Spaces. So what is yahoo trying to do when they have a killer app like Blogger owned by Google, which rocks. Doing for the sake of doing doesn’t help anyone, I say.
March 16, 2005

RK Narayanan’s My America

Few Indians in America make any attempt to integrate in American cultural or social life. So few visit an American home or a theater or an opera, or try to understand the American psyche. An Indian’s contact with the American is confined to his colleagues working along with him and to an official or seminar luncheon. He may also mutter a “Hi!” across the fence to an American neighbor while lawn-mowing. At other times one never sees the other except by appointment, each family being boxed up in their homes securely behind locked doors.

After he has equipped his new home with the latest dish-washer, video, etc., with two cars in the garage and acquired all that the others have, he sits back with his family counting his blessings. Outwardly happy, but secretly gnawed by some vague discontent and aware of some inner turbulence or vacuum, he cannot define which. All the comfort is physically satisfying, he has immense “job satisfaction” and that is about all.

RK Narayan’s My America is a simple-yet-devastatingly ironical look of an Indian’s American life. This article of RK Narayan was written for Hindu’s Frontline in 1985. I keep reading and re-reading this but now I am starting to appreciate it better. My America has the classical writing style of RKN. Very subtle, very genius.

Sujatha had written a similar article called Vellinaattu Mogam Konda Ilaignargalukku which was even more straight-from-the-heart and hard-hitting. I had just too many discussions on this with my friends. The last few were with Balaji and Latha. But don’t worry, to pick up a discussion on this again, is a cake walk for me. I’m ready !!

Seattle’s Pallavan

Gossips Galore

Vasanth’s 9:30 to 10

Yahoo 360 Blogging Service

RK Narayanan’s My America